A touch-friendly overhaul produces the best Kobo yet. It seems the pressure to embrace touch is invading every corner of consumer technology, even though theoretically an e-Ink style eBook reader such as the Kobo shouldn't really need a touch interface.
While it's tempting to dismiss touch as a fad, it actually does a lot to improve the Kobo's usability. The Kobo is probably the best e-Ink style alternative to Amazon's slick Kindle. As for buying books directly via the Kobo, you've now got access to Kobo's store via wi-fi. You can also shop for eBooks via the website or Kobo desktop app (Mac and Windows), plus you'll find iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Palm Pre apps.
Kobo has removed the ability to purchase books directly via iOS apps, after Apple demanded a 30 per cent cut of the sale, but you can still use mobile Safari to make purchases. The icing on the cake is that you can buy Adobe-protected ePub books from a wide range of sources and load them onto the Kobo using Adobe Digital Editions (unlike the Kindle).
iGadget owners wanting to read Adobe-protected ePub should look to Bluefire Reader. The Kobo also supports .mobi, PDF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ and CBR files along with JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF images.
Having reviewed the first and second generation Kobo, I won't go through the whole e-Ink v LCD argument again. I was however really keen to see what touch would bring to the party. There's also a new touch-friendly, wi-fi enabled Sony Reader available - which I'll look at next week. Amazon has also unveiled touch-friendly Kindles, but won't ship them to Australia yet.
The new Kobo eReader Touch has undergone an iPad-esque makeover. The only buttons left are the home button and a sliding power switch. Ditching the five-way rocker for navigating the menus has allowed Kobo to shrink the bezel, making the device around 5mm narrower and 20mm shorter than the previous Kobo while still retaining a 6-inch display. It's also 20 grams lighter.
All of this means it rests comfortably in your hand and slips easily into your bag or perhaps even a large jacket pocket.
The need to press a button to turn the page has always been my key complaint about e-Ink readers. It might seem like a minor issue, but it makes it hard to forget you're using a gadget and become engrossed in the text.
The button on each new Kobo and Kindle has been softer and quieter than the last, but touch was always going to win out in the end. Flicking the Kobo's screen with your thumb or index finger offers a very natural reading experience, although the display is not quite as sensitive as an iGadget and it's easy to get lazy with your swipes.
Ditching the five-way rocker also means that it's easy to hold the Kobo in either hand and turn pages, which is great news for southpaws. The touch interface also makes it easier to navigate the Kobo's menus.
Touch isn't the only improvement with the new Kobo. Extra grunt under the bonnet helps it open books and turn pages faster. It also caches six pages at a time, so the screen no longer flickers with every page turn - an effect which is also a major disruption to the reading experience.
The Kobo still falls short of the Kindle when it comes to buying books on the device. The Kobo store is painfully slow to load and browsing titles is a cumbersome experience.
The onscreen touch keyboard is less painful than navigating a QWERTY keyboard with a five-way rocker, but it's still not as slick as using the Kindle's tiny built-in keyboard. By the time you've struggled to the checkout on the Kobo, you could have already started reading a new book on the Kindle.
Considering you'll spend more time reading books than buying them, the Kobo's cumbersome book-buying experience might not bother you. But if you really are keen to buy books on the go, you might find the Kindle's 3G access a killer feature. Kobo has also followed the Kindle by adding a basic browser, although it's usefulness is limited by the lack of 3G access.
Overall the new Kobo eReader Touch is an impressive device at a reasonable price. Even so, it's hard to ignore just how slick the Amazon ecosystem is and I'd certainly weigh up the Kobo against the Kindle.
If you're determined to stick with the ePub format rather than Amazon's eBook format, then the Kobo eReader Touch is the one to beat.